Schemer

For this drama, Hanro Smitsman and scriptwriter Anjet Daanje were inspired by the murder of the Nijmegen teenager Maja Bradaric in 2003. She was killed by her friends. Bradaric's tragic story is almost absent from Schemer; the film mainly describes how people can bring themselves to murder. The director refrains from condemning the young culprits, but wants to gain a better understanding of their motives. In Schemer, the once so tight friendship between six youngsters is disrupted. Surreptitious love affairs and personal crises lead to ever more hostile conversations and the exclusion of one of the girls. The mutual irritations intensify to top-heavy proportions, so the plan to kill the girl seems increasingly logical. Smitsman divided his smartly shot production into chapters that, occasionally overlapping, show the events through the eyes of each character. By gradually exposing their personal experiences, emotions and interactions, it is revealed how far-reaching peer pressure can be.